Our time on the Sea Lion was up. We pulled into a private marina in a manicured gated community at Playa Herradura and loaded ourselves into a bus for the ~100km uphill drive to Costa Rica's capital San Jose. The bus went to the airport for most passengers to connect directly back to the USA. We have a week to kill before our next adventure, so we caught a taxi to our hotel in the area of La Sabana. It's only 15km, but took nearly an hour in heavy traffic. Our driver seemed excited to test out his limited English, which was a lot better than our Spanish. Our tip amounted to about USD10, so he was very pleased.
From our hotel, San Jose seems to be surrounded by mountains, some of which are semi-active volcanos, and persistent clouds cling to their peaks. We were told that one of these volcanos has been spewing ash daily for the last year or so. No-one seems perturbed.
The Vatican Embassy in the grandest building near our hotel.
San Jose is decidedly cooler than the coast. It is definitely equatorial, at 09N, but is at an elevation of 1200m. It's variably cloudy and very windy, and stayed that way for our 4 day stay here. As in our whole trip, we didn't see any rain.
From the hotel we can see the Parque Metropolitano La Sabana which houses the city's main football stadium and is obviously a very popular place for families to relax. No football took place while we were here.
San Jose's mountains behind this impressive football stadium.
Like in Panama City, we hired a local guide for a day. Angelica looked after us in her VW Crossfox, a cute mini-SUV, and we toured the city by bothe walking and driving. Margrit on the Sea Lion had warned us that San Jose (her home town) is not a pretty city, and she was right. Angelica has to work hard for her money in this town.
San Jose is not a historical Spanish city. It was founded in 1738 by building a chapel which was intended to consolidate the residents scattered around the Central Valley. That must have worked, but we're not surprised to hear that water was a significant problem for the fledgling town - there doesn't seem to be a decent river here, despite the runoff which must occur from those mountains.
The downtown area is not what we expected. The buildings are mostly 2-4 stories high with only a few scattered examples which are newer and taller, up to 15-20 stories. This is why we couldn't pick the CBD from our hotel (which is itself new and 20 stories tall). Angelica told us that the newer and taller buildings have the best earthquake technology, which is just as well given that the country is right in the zone. A few of the older buildings, theatres etc, are quite grand.
The National Theatre of Costa Rica (1891) is the city's finest historic building.
The inner CBD is basically all pedestrian mall, and has been for as long as Angelica could remember. The streets, with central (but buried) drains are raucous places, amplified advertisments from the shops plus no end of loud spruikers plying leathergoods, phone accessories, lottery tickets etc. We weren't targeted, even though we obviously don't belong. The street vendors lay their goods on mats which can be quickly wrapped up and taken, because the police move these people on frequently.
We found that, buying small essentials (coffee, cake, chocs etc), US Dollars were readily acceptable, although every note you submit gets scrutinised closely. Everyone has a calculator on hand to make the conversion, and you get change in colón (CRC). Eventually you accumulate enough colón to buy something in local currency.
Impressive sculpture obviously meant to commemorate the diversity and dress of old Costa Ricans.
Interestingly, at the Post Office, we learned that most people collect their mail from PO boxes, This is because many streets have no names, and the properties have no numbers, and specific addresses are declared by a set of navigational instructions. There seems to be an attempt to rectify this problem.
Clare and Angelica waiting to cross the road in front of the Post Office building.
Driving around, Angelica showed us poor areas where she wouldn't walk, suburbs with upmarket housing (high fencing and razor wire surround every block, and barred doors and windows within), and streets packed full of bars and restaurants. We saw the University of Costa Rica (also well and truly fenced) where she is about to graduate in dramatic arts. Her ambition is to become a theatrical director.
San Jose gave us a nice relaxing break before we fly south to Ecuador.
San Jose's approach to broadband is not glamorous but hopefully effective.
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